Arnold

Arnold, (1) of Brescia, a religious reformer of the twelfth century. He was a pupil of Abelard, and returning to Italy as a monk began to denounce the corruptions of the Church and the greed of ecclesiastics. Though condemned by Innocent II. and the Lateran Councils in 1139, he was so strongly supported that from 1144 to 1154 he held possession of Rome, drove out the popes, and established a republic. Adrian IV., assisted by Barbarossa, forced him to fly into Tuscany, where he was captured and put to death.

(2) Of Winkelried, a Swiss hero, who at the battle of Sempach in 1386 rushed upon the spears of an impenetrable Austrian phalanx, and by thus sacrificing his life opened a passage for his countrymen. The result was a total rout of the Austrians with fearful slaughter. This story, however, rests on late evidence, and there has been much controversy in Switzerland and Germany since 1860 as to its truth.

(3) Gottfried, an earnest, active, but somewhat harsh and gloomy religious reformer, who strove, like Arndt, Spener, and Francke, to infuse new life into the effete orthodoxy of German Protestantism. He was born in 1665, and held a variety of posts, never retaining any for long owing to his pietism and his temper. In 1704 he was appointed royal historiographer by Frederick I., and was subsequently made pastor and inspector of Perleberg, where he died in 1713. He wrote a Church History, which was severely handled by Mosheim.

(4) Benedict, an American general, born in 1741 in a humble station. He twice enlisted in the British army, and twice deserted. When the Revolution broke out he was in business at Newhaven. After the battle of Lexington he raised a volunteer corps, was appointed colonel, served under Allen at Ticonderoga and Montgomery in the march to Quebec, and after rather a stormy career got the governorship of Philadelphia, His recklessness and perhaps dishonesty caused him to be reprimanded, whereupon he entertained the idea of going over to the enemy. Washington, who valued him for his pluck and dash, gave him the command at West Point; and Sir Henry Clinton sent Major Andre to negotiate for the surrender of the fortress. Andre was caught on his way back to the British lines, and was executed. Arnold escaped, joined the British army, fought for some vears against his former comrades, and died in England in 1801.

(5) Matthew, poet, critic, theologian, and educationalist, the eldest son of Dr. Arnold (q.v.), born at Laleham, near Staines, on the 24th December, 1822. Educated at Winchester. Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford, he carried off the Newdigate prize for English verse in 1843. graduated in honours in 1844, and was elected Fellow of Oriel in 1845. In 1851 he was appointed Lay Inspector of Schools under the Committee of Council on Education, an office which he served for nearly thirty-five years, resigning in 1886. During this period he did the cause of education signal service, especially by his investigations into Continental education, of which some of the results were given to the public in 1868 under the title The Schools and Universities of the Continent. His public career as a poet began with the appearance in 1843 of his Newdigate poem, Cromwell. In 1848 The Strayed Reveller was sent to the press as the work of "A," followed in 1853 by Empedocles and other Poems, published anonymously. Here his poetical life ended, save for a few casual effusions for the magazines. If he produced too little to rank as a great poet, his work was of a very choice order, and his fame as a poet is still growing. As a critic his career may be dated from 1857, when he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. His lectures On Translating Homer appeared in 1861; his Essays on Criticism in 1865; and his Study of Celtic Literature in 1868; a second series of Critical Essays being published posthumously in 1888, edited by Lord Coleridge. His primacy among the critics of his day was undisputed. While working from fixed principles, he was always catholic and sympathetic; and to him more than to anyone else is due the more genial spirit which has come over English criticism. His very considerable work as a theologian, which showed him to be a thinker of quite uncommon originality, with profound ethical insight, is represented by St. Paul and Protestantism (1871), Literature and Dogma (1873), God and the Bible (1875), and Last Essays on Church and State (1877); his contributions to political and social criticism by Culture and Anarchy (1870), and Irish Essays and Others (1882). He died quite suddenly on April 15th, 1888.

(6) Samuel, Mus.D., an English musician, born in 1740, came early under the influence of Handel. He was director of music at Covent Garden and the Haymarket, organist of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey. He wrote several operas, of which The Maid of the Mill was the most popular, and a number of oratorios, amongst them The Prodigal Son, not to mention a profusion of songs, services, sonatas, concertos, etc. None of his productions, however, show any great talent, and his edition of Handel's works did him little credit. Early in the century he built the Lyceum Theatre as a home for English opera, but died in 1802 before it was opened. He was buried with great solemnity in Westminster Abbey.

(7) Thomas, D.D., was born at East Cowes, where his father was collector of customs, in 1795. He went from Winchester to Oxford, and after a brilliant career at the university married and settled at Laleham near Staines in 1819, supporting himself by private tuition. Though ordained deacon, his scruples as to signing the Thirty-Nine Articles prevented his taking priest's orders till 1828, when he was appointed head-master of Rugby School. It was there that the work of his life was done, and that work wrought a complete revolution in English education. It is not easy to explain briefly the way in which this was effected. Perhaps the most powerful agency that Arnold employed was the cultivation of a sense of honour as the basis of discipline. But his own personal influence, and his incessant care and sympathy for boys, account in a large measure for his success, and the standard which he set asserted itself gradually in all the public schools. His religious views were characterised by breadth combined with genuine and cheerful piety. In politics he passed from Toryism to such pronounced Liberalism as destroyed his chances of Church preferment. He wrote his Roman History, his valuable edition of Thucydides, his Commentary on the New Testament, and a treatise on Church and State which was to serve as the foundation for a greater work. In 1841 he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, and his lectures in the following year opened with an able discussion of the philosophy of history. In June, 1842, he was seized with angina pectoris, and died in a few hours on the eve of his forty-seventh birthday. His Life and Correspondence, edited by the late Dean Stanley, furnishes a sympathetic record of his labours and achievements.

(8) T. K., the educationalist, born 1800, was a country rector. In 1838 he issued his Greek Prose, and in 1839 a companion volume on Latin Prose Composition. He died in 1853.